Everyone wears them, everyone loves them.

But what is often overlooked: sneakers are the epitome of fast fashion and produce tons of waste.

Often produced cheaply and quickly, they are usually only worn for one season because a different model will be all the rage the next year.

And then?

In most cases, they end up in the old clothes bag in the hope that they will be taken to a "third world" country.

There someone will find joy in the worn-out shoes.

That would have even done something good for the world, right?

With this arrogant attitude, we often do exactly the opposite: we destroy the environment.

So what really happens to our donated shoes?

And how can we tackle this problem?

Aylin Guler

Editor for Social Media.

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The editors of the journalistic start-up Flip, which is known for its research on environmental and sustainability issues, asked themselves these questions and started the "sneaker hunt" experiment in 2021.

For this, eleven pairs of celebrity sneakers were bugged and disposed of in different ways to check the recycling promise of major fashion brands.

Flip reporter Lorenz Jeric explains: “The idea came about because fast fashion is a huge problem and it creates a lot of waste.

But the topic is usually told in a rather boring way.

We wanted to show something interactive through the experiment.”

"They ended up at a Hamburg disposal company"

Celebrities like Jan Delay, Joy Denalane and Carolin Kebekus handed in their old shoes, the Flip editorial team threw them in used clothes containers and recycling boxes from Zara, Nike or Adidas, which advertise that they "give them a new life".

What came out was pretty sobering: the recycling promises made by the big brands aren't much good.

The tracked sneakers led, among other things, to illegal landfills in Kenya.

With bad consequences for the people on site, because there are no reasonable disposal structures there.

“Basically, it's not bad that old clothes are arriving in Kenya.

The used clothing industry is huge, and many local people make a living from it,” says Jeric.

"But first of all it's far too much, and secondly the quality is so bad that, according to Greenpeace, almost half of it is unusable.

It then ends up in the environment or in landfills.”

But not all shoes end up in Africa.

“There are pretty big differences in where these sneakers ended up.

Three pairs landed in Africa, one pair in Ukraine.

But we also had couples who were destroyed directly in or around Hamburg,” Jeric recalls.

“We sold the Jan Delay sneakers to Zara, for example.

They ended up at a Hamburg disposal company.

We then lost the GPS signal there.”